Kingston Stroll #1: Heart and Start
This is the 1st of a 10-cache series which takes you from the heart of the village through the fields and along the farm lanes of the Swanborough area immediately to the east. The 3.5km circuit can be completed in under 2 hours allowing for necessary cache and optional short bird-watching, photographic and refreshment stops en route.
Please note the #6 and #9 are puzzle caches which will require the completion of an online jigsaw puzzle to reveal the cache coordinates and a useful hint.
The cache, a small screw-capped, camo-taped plastic pot, is hidden near a C15 public house (named after the baskets used in the past by women to carry fish from Brighton to Lewes market) at the heart of this lovely historic Sussex village.
To Find The Cache:
After parking your cachemobile @ N 50 51.461 W 0 01.275 next to the public house . . .
Step 1: cross the car park to the corner @ N 50 51.455 W 0 01.254 where you will find a large sign. On the car park side of this are 6 lines of text. The number of letters of the last word of line 3 = A
Step 2: make your way to and through the side entrance of the pub to N 50 51.441 W 0 01.267 where you will see a second sign. The sum of the two numbers on this = B
Steps 3 & 4: continue across the front of the pub to the entrance door at N 50 51.434 W 0 01.287 where there is a 3rd sign. The number of whole juggs depicted on the sign (count those on one side of the side only) = C
Looking a little lower, the number of words written on the wall tile immediately above the entrance door = D
Steps 5 & 6: now retrace your steps and head through the gate onto the village green which includes a children's play area. Standing at N 50 51.463 W 0 01.302 you will note that there are E green grip handles on the 'bridge' connecting the steps of the nearer structure to the curvy slide and F swings of different shapes and sizes suspended from their 3 wooden frames.
The cache is hidden a short stroll away at:
N 50 51.(A-2)(C+E)(B+1) W 0 01.(D-1)(E-F)(B+C)
Kingston-near-Lewes nestles at the foot of the South Downs some 2 miles south of Lewes. It is located within the South Downs Area of Natural Beauty and has the SSSI Kingston Escarpment and Iford Hill on the slopes of the downs just west of the village. This covers a section of the open chalk downland, where in the spring a wide variety of chalk downland plants flower, including rare orchids.
It is primarily a residential village although Kingston Farm still operates from the The Street in the centre of the village conservation area and provides a valuable link to the rural setting. Sheep farming is the main farming activity with the steep slopes to the west of the village being notable for their parallel lines created by soil creep down the slopes which follow the contours.